


Calendar Year

by heartsinhay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinhay/pseuds/heartsinhay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year in offbeat holidays in the Lalonde house. A mother always does her best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calendar Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redleobox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleobox/gifts).



**January 1: New Year’s Eve**

After the all canapés have been tidied away, the diorama of the New York skyline destroyed by the replica Times Square Ball and Rose put to bed, Roxy stretches out on the sofa, her mind already thinking up plans for the next mother-daughter bash. Maybe on the lawn this time—a garden party, wouldn’t that, as the kids say, be totally wicked? With wizards and Squiddles sculpted from ice, and a warm tent (maybe she could rent one from the circus?) to spend the _actual_ party in. Rosie’s only eight, after all. Not grown up enough yet to dance out in the cold.

Today was good, though. Just her and Rose, eating fancy finger food and staying up until, well, closer to eleven than midnight, but growing girls need their sleep. Roxy’s not always the best mother, but she throws damn well amazing parties. Sometimes it feels like it’s the only thing she can do, and most times it feels like it’s not enough. Rose is growing distant, Roxy getting busier, and the next party-worthy holiday is all the way in February.

Collapsing against the sofa cushions, Roxy stares dolefully at the calendar on the wall, that empty stretch of nothing between January first and February fourteenth. The clock strikes twelve, and that’s when the idea hits her like the side of a new ship against a bottle of champagne.

Why should she wait for the next normal holiday? She’s not a normal mom, and, hell, Rosie’s a special girl. They can celebrate whatever they damn please.

**February 4: National Create A Vacuum Day**

Roxy can’t bake cookies, and she can’t pitch baseball, but there’s one thing she can do, and that’s science. The work she’s doing is too secret to bring Rosie all the way down to the lab, but doesn’t mean she can’t show off a little. All she needs is some equipment in the living room, with glowy lights and spinny dials that don’t actually do anything hastily welded on. See, Rosie, your mom can be cool, too.

When Rose gets home, she stares at the metal contraption next to the sofa with suspicion.

“What’s that?”

“Just something from Mommy’s lab. Wanna see how it works?”

“You can use pronouns, you know,” Rose says, frowning, “I can understand them. I’m not a child.” She walks up next to Roxy anyway, though she has to pause to concentrate on raising a single eyebrow halfway through.

“Something from _my_ lab, then,” Roxy replies, flipping a switch that makes at least seven of the glowy lights start flashing in sync, “Let me show you. See? All the air’s getting sucked out. Know what happens next?”

“No, mother,” Rose says, dutifully, and she looks so cute trying to be old-fashioned that Roxy can’t help but ruffle her hair.

“It creates a vaccum,” Roxy says, “In a few seconds there’s going to be absolutely nothing in that chamber. Isn’t that cool?”

She doesn’t wait for a response. She has a whole speech planned out for the next part, and the little sip of afternoon constitutional she had earlier’s playing havoc with her long-term memory.

“Now, here I’ve got a couple things I just found around the house. And, now, we’re going to use them to make our very own vacuum!”

Rose makes a small, offended, sound, screwing up her face like she just ate a cake made of cockroaches, and Roxy smiles indulgently down at her.

“Mom, I already had science class today. In _school._ ”

**March 14: National Potato Chip Day**

 “A traditional celebration isn't finished without a smorgsa—I mean, a smorgasbord,” Roxy says, as she puts a Mr. Potato Head in the middle of the table, the centerpiece of the display. She’s got a little tray of potato chips, small stacks arranged in neat rows. Some of them are even homemade, if by home she means her lab downstairs, which she does.

“’Smorgasbord’ implies variety,” Rose says, poking the edge of the tray with a dubious finger, “These are just chips.”

Roxy smiles at that, leaning back so Rose can appreciate the tray in its full, organized, splendor and widening her eyes in pretend surprise.

“Really?”

“Really, mom.”

“Well, how about you try one?”

She keeps her face still and placid when Rose looks at her, and watches as Rose picks up a chip, bites into it carefully and then immediately spits it out.

“What _is_ that?”

Roxy takes the chip under and nibbles it experimentally. It’s too sweet, artificial, and under that is the ever-present savory taste of potato. She’ll have to send a memo to Skaianet R&D it’s not a good mix.

“Strawberry flavor, I think. Try another.”

“ _You_ try one.”

Roxy takes her time picking, sniffing each chip and holding them up near her eye so she can inspect them real closely. Of course, the one she actually bites into just happens to be jalapeno.

 **March 25:** **Pecan Day**

"So how do you bake that pecan pie of yours, anyway?"

"Roxy Lalonde!" says the voice on the other end of the phone, scandalized, "Is that how you greet a friend you haven't spoken to in half a year?"

Well, that's Jane Egbert for you. Older, now, but still a firebrand, and, oh, what a stickler! They met in college, she and Jane, when Roxy had to take Business Management as an elective, and by the end of the course, Roxy'd started renting her spare room with  discount that was on account of Roxy's, Jane claimed, "keeping company with a lonely widow whose son's gone away to school". Privately Roxy thought it'd always been half charity, given to a former foster kid newly shorn from the state, but somehow, since it was Jane, she could never bring herself to care.

'Has it really been that long?" she asks, opening up the drawers in search of supplies, "Sorry, Janey, I just got so caught up in... everything, I guess. Work, but of course you know that already. And then there's Rose, and that's partly what the call's for.

She sticks her head in the cabinet and peers around. Damn. Nothing but Pop Tarts, as far as the eye can see. Well, it doesn't matter. She can just go shopping with Rose later, anyway. It'll be fun.

"I don't believe you ever tire of being cryptic," Jane says, dryly, and Roxy all of a sudden remembers that it has been half a year, which means that Jane can't have heard about her whole bright idea. She explains it, phone jammed between her ear and shoulder as she rummages around in the fridge (finding, disappointingly, mostly gin), and Jane laughs at the end of the whole spiel.

"Only you, Rox. Well, I've got this new contraption I bought myself for store orders last month, and it can, ah, send you an electronic envelope, as the kids say."

They chat about technology a little more, Roxy teasing Jane about how she'll probably set the whole computer on fire ("electronic envelope", really, where'd she learn that from, her grandson?). There's even a lull in the conversation while Jane painstakingly types the whole thing out with two fingers and her reading glasses slipping down her nose. Roxy stands in the middle of her empty kitchen, shifting between her feet, and gathers her courage for the question she hasn't been able to ask for a whole half a year.

"Hey, Jane?"

"Yes, honey?"

"How did you do it?"

"Well, Roxy dear, I'm typing that whole thing up right now. Are you sure you can get the mail just like that? Do you need to be 'paged'?"

"No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about— about—"

Roxy's voice gets smaller and lower the more she stammers, but eventually she manages to force a whisper out into the phone:

"How do you raise a child?"

**April 1: April Fool's Day**

The phone trills three times, pauses, and then trills again. Roxy nearly slams it down in despair. She's been calling Jane for the better part of fifteen minutes and each time she still gets a busy signal.

"Who're you even talking to?" she asks the phone, "You're seventy-two. Everyone your age still uses telegram."

There's a hunch forming at the back of her mind. Normally, she wouldn't go for it, but right now, she's desperate. She needs the perfect prank for Rosie  _now_ , not in an hour when Jane stops listening to a call-in detective novel or whatever she's doing. Roxy grabs the phone again with a bit too much force and dials.

"Strider."

"Lalonde. Should've known it was you holding up Mrs. Egbert's line. Hacked the phones, didn't you? Well, that's a sad excuse for an April Fool's prank, and completely dwarfed but what I've got for you."

"What? I thought you were on the phone with her. I was calling you on the office line to make sure you got off."

A pause, and then both grown adults snicker at the entendre in a way that even Rosie's too grown up for.

"Why do you think she's busy? Playing bingo by telephone?"

"She runs a joke shop and it's April Fool's, Lalonde, there's not much of a mystery. It ain't rocket science, which is a shame, because if it was then you might've known the right answer."

"Well, hey, Mr. High and Mighty, don't pretend you don't need help with your prank, too. Why are you calling her, anyway? You barely met each other."

"She made an impression."

Roxy casts her mind back, trying to remember, but gets a whole lot of nothing. If she was fishing, she'd come up with a tin can and an old boot.

"Think it's Harley on the phone with her?" she says, instead. Maybe she can goad him into spilling a few details.

"Harley's dead."

"Hasn't stopped him before."

Dirk laughs, and Roxy feels a brief stab of pride just because of it.

"Fuck it," he says, "I'll just dump some smuppets on his bed like I always do. My elaborate machinations can wait till I can rent a good puppet Elvis."

Roxy sighs, resigned to going back to the joke books alone (she's gotta make this prank spectacular, she's gotta), and tells him goodbye. Before she does the last-minute research, though, she'd better try Jane one more time.

Miraculously, the old woman picks up on the first ring.

"Oh," she yawns, "Roxy. I suppose you're in need of my expertise, hoo hoo! Apologies for the late reply, I was—"

She pauses, the barest hint of laughter creeping into her voice."

"Do you suppose you'd believe me if I said I was playing bingo by phone?"

**July 4: National Sidewalk Egg Frying Day**

“Let ‘er drop!”

Rosie doesn’t just drop the egg, she throws it, watching as it shatters on the pavement.

“Why are we doing this again?”

The temperature’s a hundred and thirty degrees in Death Valley, just hot enough to fry an egg. And though, scientifically speaking, it’s not hot enough to fry Roxy up in her skin, too, it sure feels like it. Rose stands bleary-eyed next to her, clutching a cold Pepsi can to her forehead, sweat plastering her bangs to her forehead.

“It’s National Sidewalk Egg Frying Day, Rosie. It’s probably, ah… patriotism. That’s why.”

Rose drops the can of Pepsi (though fortunately not next to the egg) and marches up to a pile of rock, climbing until she can stare Roxy in the eye.

“Mom, today’s the fourth of July!”

She sounds like the kid she is, a whine to her voice and no fancy vocab words at all. Rose’s so smart that she forgets that she is a kid sometimes, Roxy thinks, though that might be just because she doesn’t want to be one.

“Not sure what that has to do with anything, Rosie dear,” says Roxy, fighting to keep her laughter out of her light, deceptively casual voice, “There are important holidays and there are less important holidays, you know.”

“Yeah, and Sidewalk Egg Frying Day is less important!”

“You sure about that, Rosie?”

“Yes!”

**August 2: International Forgiveness Day**

"I'm sorry about the recital, sweetie-bear," Roxy says, watching Rose's face in the rearview mirror. She didn't mean to miss it. She doesn't even remember why, her mind gone hazy with work and gin and feeling like there's nothing out there in the whole universe, just a big empty space where her life used to be. A big empty space, and Rose. There are more bad days than good, by now. She doesn't remember how she used to be able to do things, turn in thesis papers on time and honor all obligations, though there had to have been a time when she could think about more than making SBURB. Hell, sometimes she thinks she sees Skaia in her dreams.

She blocks out the memory, looks up again at Rose. This is what she should be focusing on. Her daughter. The center of her world.

'I didn't expect your presence anyway," Rosie replies, her face turned towards the door, nose against the window, "I told Ms. Herrera that you'd be absent."

Roxy wishes she could invent a device that could fix this, some kind of reset button or time travel machine. A mind-reader to see if Rosie still loves her. A potion that'd transform her into the best mom in the world. There should be a support group, she thinks, grimly, for parents who fuck up. She'd start one, if she had the time.

"Today's International Forgiveness Day, you know," she says, tentatively. It's not enough, but Rose still sighs and turns back toward the front with a heave of her little shoulders.

"Okay, mom," she says, "I guess it is." 

**October 21: Babbling Day**

"Hello?"

"Hi! Jane, it's me."

"Well, well, well, my favorite unreliable correspondent."

"I know, Janey, it's been too long. Completely my fault, I'm super sorry, it's just... I've been so stressed out lately, with the Rose, and the game... Sometimes I swear it's like that thing is alive, and just mocking us."

'Us?"

"The company. Skaianet. I mean, I know my code's gorgeous as hell, but who'd employ a geneticist to create a videogame? And I know Strider's involved in the thing somehow, but, for fuck's sake, the man peddles puppet porn. I don't get it, Janey. You should've said yes to that job offer. Then you'd understand."

"And maybe then we could have a conversation that lasts more than five minutes."

"I wish."

"I wish we could visit. Introduce Rose to my grandson, he's about her age. Spend some quality Ro-Jay time together. And you could finally meet my son. I know he's grown up handsoome. I'm not long for the world, you know."

"Don't talk like that, Janie. You gotta live to see me get frown lines."

"There's no point, then, if I'm not seeing you."

"Harley said we couldn't."

"Jake didn't know everything."

"But you feel it too, right? We can't meet up. We shouldn't. Whatever happens, we have to go it alone."

"With the children."

"With the kids, yeah. I swear they're going to save the world someday."

Jane makes a noise that sounds like a chuckle, turned staticky by distance, and Roxy misses her laugh.

"With all the trouble we go through? They better."

**November 29: Frankenstein Day**

Rose wakes up to an abomination at the foot of her bed, a thing that is mostly wrinkled skin, with patchy hair coming in blue by the heads and scales on its feet. To her credit, Rose doesn't panic, or, like any other kid would, cry. Instead, she gives the monster a long, level, look, and opens her mouth to raise her voice in a wail:

" _Moooooom!"_

At this, Roxy casually walks in from the corner she was hiding behind.

"What is it, hon?"

Rose's glare tells the whole story. They both know what it is, but just in case Roxy's forgotten, Rose's raises her arm and stabs an accusing finger at the monster.

"I'm going to get diseases. I'll waste away like a consumptive with a bullet wound."

"Oh, Rosie bear, don't worry, it's just a robot. I had Dirk make it up special."

Rose's face contorts into a variety of grimaces, mutinous at the very unfairness of the idea.

"Mom, why?"

"it's Frankenstein Day."

Taking the news with seeming equanimity, Rose breathes in, then out, then in again. Holding her breath for an impressive amount of time, Rose lets out a really impressive bellow for a kid her age.

"Mom! None of these holidays are real holidays! This is stupid! Nobody at school has these stupid holidays and I told a girl about Eat Your Vegetables Day and now the whole class thinks I'm even weirder!"

Rose's shoulders are heaving when she's done, breath coming out in ragged gasps instead of her usual even exhale. Roxy's heart sinks like a wrecked submarine. Her hands are held too perfectly still to shake, but her stomach roils. She needs to calm down. She needs to be a better mother. She needs to explain herself most of all, and she doesn't know how.

"Rosie, I just— I love you, and everything we did was supposed to be special, and different, and we're different— It's just because I love you, and I want to spend time with you, and it's so hard to get you to just be together sometimes—"

And then Rose's whole face smooths out, by some trick of unconscious posture curving in on herself until she's the very picture of the docile child.

"Of course, mom. I love you— I love you more. Why don't I surprise you with our next celebration? You won't have to plan a thing."

Something's still not right (a mother always knows, Roxy thinks, except that isn't true), but it's a start, isn't it? It has to be a start.

**December 10: No Particular Day At All**

Ten days before Christmas, just as Roxy’s printing out special stationery for letters to Santa, Rose comes up to her with a large black book clutched to her chest. It looks almost too heavy for Rosie to lift, and Roxy takes it out of her hands and puts it orin the table as a matter of course.

“Mom,” Rose croaks, her voice hushed like that one soldier guy’s in that one war movie. There are dark circles under her eyes. Probably stayed up late reading again, with her flashlight under the covers. Roxy’d confiscate it, but she’s not sure that Rosie wouldn’t try to read by the light of the moon, or light matches in the dark.

“What is it, darling?”

“I’m not celebrating Christmas anymore,” Rose announces, “I renounce both commercialist myth and Judeo-Christian ideology. Now, I worship the dark gods and the dark gods alone.”

Roxy glances at the book. Grotesque Creatures: A Grimoire. Way above her grade level, too; she always knew Rosie was special.

“Well, honey,” she says, decisively, “There’s probably a holiday for that, too.”


End file.
